Supreme Court rules section 5 of voting rights act unconstitutional based on liberty vs. justice lie

Image: Justice Roberts, the author of the majority opinion in Shelby County v. Holder (source)


I realize I'm pretty late to the game in commenting on the Supreme Court's Voting Rights Act, but because discussion about it has relied so heavily on a key justification used in social policy--the freedom (or liberty) vs justice lie--I think that "better late than never" is true here.

Whenever a policy is justified based on appeals to someone's liberty or freedom, an extreme degree of skepticism is warranted.  Except in cases of national security, which truly does whittle away at the freedoms of all (while hacking away at the freedom of Muslims who have done nothing wrong), or giving the right to marry to homosexuals (which does nothing to limit anyone else's freedom), or a few other examples, one group's gain of liberty is usually only possible with another group's loss of liberty.  The claim is always made that we must sacrifice social justice in the name of liberty, but that claim is rarely true; rather, liberty is redistributed, not created.

The Supreme court ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, in which section 4 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) was ruled unconstitutional, perfectly illustrates this point.

McDonald's sample budget and convenient explanations of poverty

(Updated below)

I can't comment any more thoroughly on the sheer inanity of McDonald's sample monthly budget for minimum wage employees than Annie-Rose Strasser did over at Think Progress.  It's worth reading in full.  But it's also worth noting that I have never seen a better example of the typical underlying assumption of American poverty.

What is most amazing about this budget is that it was put out without any sense of irony.  The people who published this clearly think it is reasonable--why else would they have published it?  And yet, this is the most effective indictment of McDonald's wage policies there could possibly be.  Twenty dollars for health insurance?  Zero dollars for heating?  No money allotted for food?  The only way to make a McDonald's job look like a livable wage is to make absolutely absurd assumptions.  There can be no more effective indictment of McDonald's wage practices than this--try for yourself to make a life out of this; of course you can't.  If McDonald's policies were intentionally malicious, they would never have published this.

No, Stand Your Ground is working exactly as planned

(Image source)

The basic premise behind this entire blog is that our government usually gets the policy outcomes it desires--but that the stated policy goals rarely line up with the actual policy goals.

Such is the case with Stand Your Ground laws.  Katie Halper at Salon has piece examining the racial biases in the enforcement of these laws in Florida and generally:

The Tampa Bay Times found that defendants claiming “stand your ground” are more successful if the victim is black. Seventy-three percent of those who killed a black person faced no penalty. Only 59 percent of those who killed a white person got off. The Urban Institute determined that in “stand your ground” states, when white shooters kill black victims, 34 percent of the resulting homicides are deemed justifiable. When black shooters kill white victims only 3 percent of the deaths are ruled justifiable.

Links worth reading

How's that whole Obamacare thing going?

"I want to cover everybody.  Now, the truth is unless you have what's calle d asingle-payer system in which everyon'es automatically covered, you're probably not going to reach every singel individual."
-Barack Obama, July 22, 2009

We seem to get new information every week confirming the worst fears of opponents of Obamacare from the left--it's a massive sellout to the health insurance industry at the expense of the uninsured.

Breathtaking piece about rural food insecurity

This piece should be read in full; children whose mother cannot feed them, who cannot concentrate in school because of hunger, whose brains turn to mush over the summer from utter lack of stimulation while rich school children elsewhere benefit from summer enrichment opportunities.  Their mother works a full time job.

The United States is not a country where anyone can be successful.  It is a country where its most vulnerable citizens are allowed to starve, and are then demonized by politicians for their suffering.

What is social democracy?

Image: Beneficiaries of Finland's social democratic welfare state (source)

I'm working on a few pieces that I realize won't be accessible to those without a basic working knowledge of social policy.  So, this post is a primer on social policy basics.  If you know all of these terms (Christian democrat, social democrat, residual, means testing, universal), you should probably skip this post.  If not, read on!

Checklist for profitable business: quality product, solid management & marketing teams, and high unemployment

Image: Construction workers "lucky" enough to have the privilege to work for low wages (source)

It's no secret that unemployment is still very high.  There are still 3.1 job seekers for every one job opening.  And things are even "worse" for the construction industry, where there are 12 job seekers for every 1 job opening:

Indeed, construction workers have been especially hard hit by the Great Recession and "recovery."  Setting aside the problems with the measure, the overall unemployment rate is 7.6%; for construction workers, the unemployment rate is 13.2%, and topped out at over 27%.  Most of the drop in unemployment is not due to these workers finding construction jobs, but with huge numbers of workers giving up.  Whether these workers successfully found work in other employment sectors matters little to the point of this post (most didn't)--but the obvious fact remains that huge numbers of workers skilled in construction are ready and willing to work.  Again, with 12 construction job seekers for every one construction job opening--double that number if you count the workers who have given up looking for construction jobs--there is no question that we have more skilled construction workers available than we can possibly use.

So why did the construction lobby fight to bring in foreign construction workers?  Current law caps work visas for immigrant guest workers at 15,000; the construction lobby fought (and failed) to get that cap eliminated.  Why, when there are so many idle, unemployed construction workers ready and willing to work, would the construction lobby possibly want to bring in more?

The reason the construction industry wants more foreign guest workers is because high unemployment keeps wages low.  When unemployment is high and workers are desperate for work, businesses can pay workers less than they're worth.  "You want $30,000 per year, plus health insurance?  Why should I hire you when Bob is willing to work for $20,000 without benefits?"  High unemployment = low wages.  This is basic economics.